Twelve

And just like that, here we are--twelve months old.  Or rather, a year!  A whole year old!  In some ways I feel like she's been a year for ages and in other ways it seems like that should still be a ways off.  Nevertheless, here we are.  And here are her stats (from March 28th) just for the record: 19.56 lbs (20%), 30 inches (72%) and 18.1 inches (72%) for head circumference.

No new teeth this month.  And she's been rather hot and cold about food.  One day she weeps over bananas, another she eats them all and so on.  Some things she will never turn down though and those are cheese, applesauce and prunes.  

But now let's talk naps.  I am going to go on a bit for a minute.  So, some months back I could rock her for a minute, put her down and she would go to sleep.  Then she started sitting up when I put her down, and then she started sitting up and crying.  My solution was to rock her all the way to sleep and then put her down.  It was a little time consuming but it worked for several months and she would still go to bed by herself.  Then, about a month ago she just started waking up every time I put her down and we would repeat the process over and over.  If I left her to cry, she would either reluctantly fall asleep for 20 minutes or so, or just keep crying and then nobody was very happy.

SO.  One day, I had the brilliant thought to just do what I used to do!  So I rocked her until she was very drowsy, put her in bed and left.  The first time, she cried for maybe one minute (maybe) and then just went to sleep and had a great nap!  In about two days she'd stopped crying at all and has been having great naps ever since. 

Can I just say that this is AMAZING.  Every time I put her down and she just goes to sleep happily it is just awesome.  She sleeps better, I don't want to throw things, nobody cries, everything is good. 

Ahhhhhh.

Okay, that's the nap story.  

But the other big story is that she is walking!  Yes.  She's been standing and cruising for a long while and I knew she COULD walk but she just wasn't ready.  One night, February 17th, she went for it and surprised us all.  

She crawls most of the time still, but in the last week she's definitely been trying to walk more often.  It is so fun to see her toddle about.

So, all in all, a pretty terrific month.  It is so fun to have her around, she makes everyone laugh and she is such a good girl.  Always on the move, always climbing onto everything, always following people and always having a good time.

Happy birthday to you, baby girl!